If you want to build a sustainable online business, the sales funnel is an important tool to help you do so. With a well-set funnel that builds trust and presents your product portfolio in an appealing way, you not only bring your online business to the forefront, you also strengthen the bond between you and your customers and increase your revenue per sale.

What is a sales funnel?

Another name for a sales funnel is the word "sales funnel." Like a real funnel, it is wide at the top to catch as many visitors as possible and get them into the funnel. As the funnel progresses, some of these visitors will drop out and the funnel will get thinner and thinner. In the end, only a handful of the original visitors fall out. But in return, you've turned these visitors into customers over the course of the funnel.

The classic sales funnel

A sales funnel is there to build trust between you and your future customers. It's not about selling quickly and once, it's about creating a sustainable relationship. Nevertheless, the long-term purpose of the funnel is, of course, to sell your products and services. In the long run, the easiest way to do this is with people who are convinced of you and your brand. In other words, with existing customers! If someone has already bought from you, this is the perfect opportunity to send them to your sales funnel after the purchase and present them with further offers from your product portfolio.

Why a sales funnel is important

A sales funnel is there for new customer acquisition. Most prospects won't buy right away when they land on your website. As a rule, 5 – 20 contacts are necessary for a prospect to really become a customer. That's why it's important to get prospects into your sales funnel so you don't lose them. You can use the marketing funnel to introduce yourself and your company and make initial contacts. If your leads can get to know you, they're more likely to buy from you!

There are some good email marketing tools that you can use to build an automatic sales cycle, such as Clickfunnels. It's best to look at different tools and then decide for yourself which one suits you best.

A sales funnel has different stages that your leads go through before they become a customer in the best case:

• Attention
• Interest
• Trade-off
• Decision
• Purchase
• Wrapping Up
• Repeat purchase

The Seven Stages of the Sales Funnel

Above, we've already touched on the seven stages of the sales funnel. These are the stages your prospect goes through to become a customer. If you accompany them in the best possible way, you increase the likelihood of persuading them to buy.

The first three phases are designed to generate interest and create an initial bond with you and your brand. In phases four and five, it's all about buying your product, and in phases 6 and 7, you'll follow up on the purchase. This means keeping in touch, providing more helpful content, and deepening the connection to keep your customer coming back for more.

Before people land on your landing page

Your funnel basically starts before your website. Think about how people get to your website or landing page. Do you get them through paid ads? Do they find you on Google? Do they come from your blog, podcast, Youtube or other social media channels?

Depending on how and why they come to you, it's important to direct them to the right landing page to create the perfect entry point into your sales funnel. The funnel itself should also be aligned in such a way that it fits with the respective entry.

It is also important that you have branding that you have adapted on your blog and website, as well as in all your channels and sales pipeline. No matter where your customers are in their customer journey, they always need to feel like they're still with you and in professional hands. That's why sellers on elopage also have the opportunity to customize their pages so that they can also use their branding on the payment pages.

Phase 1: Attention / Draw attention to yourself

Your goal with any product should be to solve one of your customers' problems. Accordingly, it makes sense to offer them a lead magnet at the beginning of the sales funnel that solves at least a small part of the main problem. This makes lead generation easier and prospects enter your lead funnel. Attention: When using lead magnets in connection with your sales funnel, be sure to pay attention to the GDPR guidelines!

Remember: People are smart. They won't buy from you until they feel like they're getting value for money. So don't try to fool them with hollow phrases, but create value with the sales funnel that justifies a purchase in the end.

You can attract attention with your positioning, i.e. with free content optimized for SEO (e.g. in a blog, YouTube channel or podcast). People who find you on Google are more likely to sign up for your list because they perceive you as an expert. They are more likely to assess you and your content in the first place and are more willing to get into your sales funnel.

Phase 2: Interest / Tell your story

If they're in your sales funnel, you've got their attention. Now it's a matter of preferring and keeping them interested. You can do that with stories. Think about which of your stories you want to tell your prospects beforehand. How do you build yourself up as a person, who do you want to portray for your customers?

For example, are you someone who stumbled upon your topic by chance, but now pursues it all the more passionately and lets others participate in your journey or wants to help? Or are you a doer who tackles your topic and sweeps everyone else along with your motivation?

What kind of story you tell is up to you, your story, and your nature as a person. But make sure that your story is well-rounded and that you tell it the same way on each of your channels. Create a well-rounded picture of yourself and your business so that it sounds believable.

Of course, in all this, you should always tell the truth. People see through lies, and then you lose the status you worked so hard to achieve before faster than you think. But we are multi-layered and only one part of your story fits your current business. Find that part and tell it. This is how you tell the truth, but focus on the essentials to advance your story and thus the relationship with your customers.

Tip: Also, get your prospect into the habit of clicking on your links now. For example, tell only part of the story in the email and ask them to click on a link and sign up for a webinar, for example, in which you share the whole story and also a few practical tips. Of course, also highlight the added value (besides your story) that your prospects will get from the webinar.

Phase 3: Consideration

The interest is there, now the potential customer comes into the phase in which he weighs up. Do you want them to accept your offer or your competition's? It's important to be present at this stage and deliver valuable content for free. Above all, always deliver more than you promised. This looks professional and your prospect will feel like they are always getting much more from you than they paid. They haven't paid anything at this stage, but if you're already exceeding their expectations, they're more likely to buy your product.

Retain the prospect by being there and always having the right answers for them. Above all, be tangible as a human being – because you know that in the end we buy from people and not from the sales funnel.

Phase 4: Decision

This is where things get tricky. Now that you've been there for your prospects in the deliberation phase, you need to get them to make a decision. Preferably one in your favor, of course. Especially the last part is not easy, because usually your competitors also go out of their way to win the customer.

This is where you bring in the testimonials you've previously requested from already satisfied customers. Send video testimonials or written testimonials with the customer's name and picture. Important: Ask your customers beforehand if you can use their testimonial with their name and picture.

Don't have any testimonials yet? Then go through your customer list and talk to customers who have had success with your service or product! Don't be afraid to ask them for feedback, because you've usually helped them solve a problem with your product. If they are satisfied, in most cases they will be happy to make you a testimonial that you can use.

Phase 5: Purchase

The prospect has chosen you and is now buying. However, he doesn't always do it just like that. Even though he has already decided on you, you often have to tell him to buy. Sometimes people need clear, simple instructions to move from their reasoning to action. These are so-called "calls to actions".

Once you've committed your prospect enough to you and your brand, reintroduce your offering, describe the benefits (what problem will be solved), and then ask them to buy.

It's very important that your prospect goes through all the other stages before this step and first builds a connection with you. If you tell a cold lead to buy, you're more likely to drive them away.

Phase 6: Follow-up

With the purchase, your sales funnel is actually complete, right? Only if you want to put in all the effort for a single sale. Letting your customer go now after they've just bought from you would be a waste of leads. The customers who fall out as customers at the end of your funnel are warm leads. They know you, they like you, they are convinced of you and your achievements and they buy from you. Now it's time to make their buying experience with you even more enjoyable and increase their lifetime value.

You can do this by being there for them even after the purchase. Offer more free content, answer questions about the product, and share insider tips with them. After the purchase, be as valuable a contact and expert as you were before to strengthen the new bond.

Phase 7: Repurchase

Here, your sales funnel practically starts from scratch – only this time your lead is already warm. This customer has already bought from you and you have strengthened the relationship with them in phase six. Now you can take it a little easier, but still be helpful before you offer another product.

These second, third, and fourth sales are now much easier to handle than when you're working with cold leads. Nevertheless, you should not become careless and neglect the follow-up or spam your customers with new offers now. Find a good middle ground to keep in touch and make a new offer every now and then.

Create your sales funnel easily with elopage

With elopage, we make it as easy as possible for you to set up upsells and thus increase your sales. With the bundles, you can make further offers on the payment page, even before your customer buys for the first time. This way, you can offer them a premium version of the actual product or a bundle of different products (such as a starter or expert bundle).

With a post-sale sales funnel, you can make more offers that your customers can't say no to. The best part is that you can easily and quickly create your sales funnel and attach it to your products in just 3 steps.

Just 3 steps to your own sales funnel

To set up your sales funnel, it only takes three steps and you're good to go!

Step 1: Create your sales funnel

You can easily create the sales funnel directly in your dashboard. Create it as a template so that you can easily and quickly link it to as many products as you like.

Step 2: Design your sales funnel

You can expand your funnel with as many upsell pages as you want and link them to a decision tree via a yes/no function. You can also easily create the upsell pages in your dashboard beforehand. To do this, you create individual pages, determine which products should be advertised there and design them completely freely.

You can include videos to add free value to your customers directly on the upsell page, set separate prices, and customize them to your own design! This gives you full control over what your customers see at the time of purchase or immediately afterwards.

Through the decision tree, you can send a customer who says no to the additional offer, but has just bought from you, directly to a page where you give another 10% discount on the offered product in order to change his mind. If, on the other hand, he chooses Yes and buys the add-on product, you can then offer him a third product.

With a well-set up decision tree, you always offer your customers exactly what suits them at that moment. You sell more, and you do it automatically!

Step 3: Attach your sales funnel to your products

Once your decision tree or funnel has been created, the third step is simply to attach it to the products for which you built it. You're done! If the customer buys one of these products now, the sales funnel starts fully automated without you having to do anything else. You set up the funnel once and have the chance to sell more products without extra work with every sale. The whole thing works for upsells, downsells, and even gifts.

elopage Quick Instructions

Start by creating the upsell pages.

1. From your dashboard, click on Templates -> Funnels -> "Upsell Pages" tab
2. Create a new upsell page
3. Add a product to the upsell page
4. Set a custom pricing and payment plan for your upsell
5. Design your upsell page and customize it
6. Click on "Save Upsell" and you're done! Now you can attach the upsell to products or create sales funnels with it

Once you've finished your upsell pages, you'll create your sales funnel.

1. In your dashboard, click on Templates -> Funnels and stay in the "Funnels" tab
2. Create a new funnel that you can name freely
3. In the next step, expand your funnel by as many pages as you like (decision tree)
4. Save your sales funnel and you're done!

Now you can connect your funnel to the products you want it to start automatically after it goes on sale. Since your sales funnel has been created as a template, you simply select the corresponding template from the drop-down menu in your product and link it with just one click!

Connect multiple sales funnels or start a specific sales funnel

To give you the greatest possible freedom in designing your sales funnels, you have the option of attaching multiple funnels per product. If the customer buys, one of the funnels starts randomly. But you want a very specific funnel to start, e.g. during a promotional period? That's no problem either!

With the parameter links, you can send your customers directly to the version of the checkout page that starts your preferred funnel. This allows you to implement special promotions without having to remove all other funnels from the product every time. Or you can create different sales funnels for different target groups and link, for example, funnel one on your landing page and funnel two in your newsletter. There are no limits to your creativity!

Bonus: Track your sales funnels

Have you integrated multiple sales funnels and want to find out which funnel generates the most sales? Then use the campaign_id to track exactly which funnel works best.

The campaign_id is installed in just a few steps:

1. Copy the direct link to the corresponding funnel
2. Add a ? after the last character of the link
3. Now add the campaign ID: campaign_id=
4. After the = enter the name of your campaign

That's it. You can evaluate the campaigns directly in your elopage dashboard. To do this, simply select the time period for which you want to compare the number of sales and compare the individual campaign IDs.

With campaign IDs, you can track the success of individual sales funnels. With the start of a funnel, other emails can also be sent. Funnel setup and use is a breeze and perfect for quickly testing deals, pricing, and promotions. It couldn't be easier. This makes sales funnels a must if you want to offer online courses or coaching, or if you have different products and services in your product portfolio.

Use Cases for Successful Sales Funnels

With a sales funnel, you can implement, test, reward, and more, many different use cases! Let's look at a few use cases.

• Offer the right product after purchase, e.g. 1:1 coaching after an event ticket has been purchased
• Someone buys a course module, then offers the rest of the modules in the package in the next step
• Someone buys your coaching, sells the expensive premium course
• The customer buys your mini-course for 1 EUR – add the large course to the offer at a promotional price
• Set up your own funnel for your newsletter subscribers to reward them for their loyalty and offer your coaching at a 50% loyalty discount after purchasing your product, for example

Start your own sales funnel in minutes!

As you can see, you have all the possibilities to optimize your online business with a sales funnel, increase your sales and improve the relationship with your customers in the process.

Create new offers from the products in your product portfolio with your own payment plans, discounts, and options and display them flexibly to generate the best sales and always offer your customers the right products.

This creates a win-win situation for you and your customers. You can showcase your entire product portfolio and have the opportunity to turn every lead into a paying customer. Best of all, you don't need any technical knowledge or download.